


Listen

by Mia_Zeklos



Series: Steven Moffat Appreciation Week [6]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Episode: s08e04 Listen, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 14:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2624840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mia_Zeklos/pseuds/Mia_Zeklos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something under his bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Listen

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day Six from the Steven Moffat appreciation week – ‘favourite thing about Doctor Who series 8’ and I chose Listen, because it was my favourite episode. And no, I couldn't think of a better title. It just summarises the story perfectly, so I left it at that.  
> Believe it or not, this was incredibly difficult to write and I had to thread very carefully through it, so I’d love to know whether you think that I made it work.

It was cold and he was freezing and the light of Gallifrey’s moons was seeping through the windows and throwing silvery shades all over the wooden floor. He shivered and pulled the blanket even tighter around himself - he should have been ready for this, he thought angrily, everyone knew that the desert at night was really cold - as he heard the footsteps of his guardians echoing as they got farther and farther away from his room.

 

They had just left and he’d let them do it without saying a word, just like every other night when they were having this conversation. What would be the point of speaking to them? He wasn’t sure why they always came to his room to say all those things if they weren’t ready to hear what he had to say. They didn’t even pretend to try and understand him, let alone anything else. They never listened.

 

Nobody ever listened.

 

There was no point in crying. He wasn’t an idiot, either, and he knew that they knew why he was coming here. It didn’t matter. What else could he do? He couldn’t help it and he couldn’t let the others hear him; he would never give them the satisfaction of knowing just how out of place he felt and just how unwilling to keep going he was.

 

He sighed and turned around, trying to get comfortable on the hard surface of the bed and failing at it spectacularly. That wasn’t exactly surprising; as far as he knew, barns in the middle of nowhere like that one were usually used by the army when they had to stay somewhere for the night and soldiers didn’t need to be comfortable. He was told that every minute of every day; what soldiers did, how they felt, what they wanted. He was sick of it.

 

It didn’t help that he felt as if, despite his guardians’s departure, he wasn’t alone in the room. There was just some strange, ethereal presence that he couldn’t shake off.

 

He closed his eyes, determined to fall asleep immediately. Tomorrow would be a big day; his mother had said that he’d finally get to see the Vortex – and he didn’t get to speak to her often, so he had listened to every word as carefully as he could. Nobody knew exactly when it would happen, of course – the main idea was to catch you off guard – but it was a well-known secret that they grouped together the children who had had their eighth birthday recently and took them there at the same time, so he was prepared for anything and anytime. He had to be well-rested and relaxed when it happened and that meant – as his father liked to tell him – that he had to always get a good night’s sleep.

 

The moon light shifted more and more into the room and he could see it even when he was half-hidden under the blanket; its shades through the windows varying and twisting and drawing pictures in which he could see anything he pleased. It was fascinating, he thought; seeing the light in such detail. He really couldn’t understand everyone’s lack of enthusiasm for travelling. So what if the entire Universe had been mapped already? The excitement from seeing it up close couldn’t be dulled by the fact that that specific moon or sun or planet had been put on a map somewhere.

 

Another sigh. Apparently the good night’s sleep wouldn’t be on the list tonight, no matter what he tried to do about it. And plus, the presence in the room wasn’t just in his imagination now; someone was shouting a name. Or at least, he supposed it was a name. Clara. Was it someone else who had come here to hide? Clara. Such a strange name, really, and it was about time he stopped hiding.

 

“Hello?”  Irritation coursed through him when his voice shivered a bit and his breathing quickened at the meeting with the unknown. He wasn’t supposed to be afraid, no matter what the danger was. He had to face it. That was what he was being taught every day and had yet to learn how to put it in practice.

 

There was something shifting; something under his bed and he couldn’t ignore it any longer. The fear was fighting a losing battle with his curiosity. “Who’s there?”

 

No response, but he could still feel it; that unease that had made him figure it out in the first place that he wasn’t alone. “Hello?” He swung his legs off the bed, finally deciding to investigate.

 

A hand wrapped around his ankle. He froze where he was in the illogical hope that he would be safer that way, when the owner of the hand spoke up.

 

“It’s okay.” Not a monster, then; a woman. Her hand was small and warm and she wasn’t holding him with any power which was source of both relief and confusion. “This is just a dream. Just lie back again; just lie back on the bed.” He barely dared to breathe and it came out in short, panicked bursts. “It’ll all be okay if you just lie down and go to sleep.” He wavered, unsure. “Just do that for me. Just sleep.”

 

She let go of him and carefully, hesitantly, he got back into lying position and held his breath for a second. No attack followed; not that he had expected it at this point.

 

Tears started sliding down his face again now that the fear was gone and he didn’t look at the woman even as he felt her coming out from under his bed. She could hear him crying, but there was no reason to embarrass himself further and let her know who he was, so he just kept on crying under the blanket until he heard her weight shift on the floor and then the bed creak slightly as she sat down on its edge. The hand that had scared him so much just a few minutes ago was no hesitantly stroking over his hair soothingly and combed through it. It was an unfamiliar gesture for him, but not unwelcome and he felt his tears drying up on their own accord for the first time tonight just as she started speaking.

 

“Listen...”


End file.
